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Aviation History
1929
1929 - 0161.PDF
JANUARY. 24, 1929 AVIATION has a great vogue in America, and upon all sides it is already a general and favourite topic for serious discussion; Its popularity crops out in many directions, and " A. D. C," in the Daily Mail, the other day set out the following amusing examples in this connection :— America has already begun to link up food and aviation. In a restaurant adjoining Curtiss Field—the counterpart of the Croydon air port—you do not ask for an omelet ; you ask for a crash. If ham and eggs be your choice you demand a three-point landing. Bread and butter becomes a side-slip, and sausage is disguised as a ground loop. A tail skid is nothing more serious than a lamb chop. And New York already has a Graf Zeppelin Coffee Shoppe ! WHAT wonderful institutions are the ancient City Com- panies of London ! They are well the envy of the world for their antiquity and quaint customs, the latter often imitated in more modern creations, but always lacking somehow the real spirit of age which they seek to assume, resulting in a mere parody. Yet in a dignified way old companies are not so old as to refuse to move with the times when adequate reason is forthcoming for the grafting of modern tendencies, ideas and development upon their genealogical tree of existence—always provided that the development is the outcome of refinements and advances pertaining to the art or industry which they represent. PERHAPS one of the most live ancients in this respect may be classed the Worshipful Company of Coach Makers and Coach Harness Makers—to give them their full title—the recent Masters of which, with the consent of their Court, have avoided the risk of becoming more or less moribund by recognising that the art of coach and harness making as accepted for so many generations is fast becoming a dead letter, and in their place has emerged a great new industry of stupendous moment directly associated with and part of their constitutional objects, the building of motor-car coach work for small and large vehicles, a growth far beyond any- thing that in the olden days the most imaginative mind could have visualised. THIS new phase was practically recognised some ten or more years ago, when under the enlightened Mastership of Professor White, backed by Lieut.-Col. Milliner, it was decided to not only invite Liverymen to join from the motor car body-building trade, but to actually advocate their joining up, with the result that within a few years the Company, originally conceived and in active working order before A.D. 1631—receiving its Charter in 1677, one William Bussey being the first Master—quickly passed from what might perhaps be viewed as drifting towards senile decay, by reason of its circumscribed views of its functions, to re- newed prosperity from the fresh blood and vigorous life thus introduced. AND now the Company, under the present Mastership of William James McCormack, of Dunlop fame, is going strongly ahead, as there is nothing like success to beget success, and with the prospect of that very popular pioneer in auto- mobilism, Sir Edward Manville as the next Master, the membership should indeed hum along merrily. PROBABLY there are some who would say :—" And what has all this to do with aviation ? " Well, I'm coming to that. Just as the motor body building inaugurated a new era in the Ancient Company's career, so it has been decided to add a still further graft to the genealogical tree by gathering in all and sundry suitable and eligible candidates connected with the aviation world, inasmuch as it is now recognised that coach or bodywork of aircraft has been, and will be, playing a very great part in inducing the millions to join in air travel, and thus further enlarge the scope of the art of coach-building to the requirements of luxurious passenger craft of the air. With the growing tendency, therefore, of this new infusion, it may well be that membership will so rapidly expand that the brake will even have to be applied to prevent the overcrowding of this historical Institution. Therefore it behoves those who would wish to enter the fold not to hasten too slowly to intimate their desires lest they find themselves in a waiting queue outside the closed doors. the first public bodies in this country to recognise and honour the achievement of M. Bleriot when he flew the Channel in July 25, 1909. M. Bleriot being at the time, upon the propo- sition of Professor White, unanimously elected an honorary member of the company, Professor White, in view of the shrink- ing of old coach work, adapting, in support of his proposal, the company's motto of Surgit post nubila Phoebus to " Behind the depression of the clouds rises the Sun of Automobilism and Aviation." So that the Company is more than justified by its foresight in now further seeking the suffrage of those aeronautically inclined. SIR SAMUEL HOARE last week, speaking at Wednesbury upon political matters, before entering upon politics, paid a well-deserved appreciation to the splendid work effected in Afghanistan by the R.A.F. Emphasising that during his five years' official connection with British flying, his office had been conspicuously free from political controversy, he said that, although he had done everything to strengthen our air defences, he had never ceased his efforts to make the aeroplane a benefit, not a curse, to the world. Continuing, Sir Samuel said that in the last few weeks we had had a dramatic instance of the peaceful and beneficial uses to which this new invention could be applied. Flying at 100 miles an hour over mountains otherwise almost impene- trable, in the teeth of snow and winter storms, landing in Kabul amid the fire of the rival armies, the Royal Air Force had successfully transported to safety 140 citizens—men, women, and children—of 10 nationalities. Was there ever a better or happier example of the beneficial use to which the aeroplane could be applied ? Suppose that at the begin- ning of the Indian Mutiny aeroplanes had been available to rescue the women and children in the beleaguered posts. Would not many lives have been saved and great calamities avoided ? The evacuation of Kabul by air had two lessons to teach. The first was that of the mobility of air power, and the second was that the aeroplane, if properly used, could be made an instrument of real help and benefit to the British Empire and humanity at large. AND SO say all of us ! Magnificent. IN emphasis of Sir Samuel's eulogy of aircraft's possible great and peaceful service to mankind, details of the recent conveyance by air of anti-diphtheritic serum to the infected Peace River Colony, away in the wilds of the Canadian N.W. Territories, as set out in FLIGHT for January 10, on page 34, arc very significant. SPEAKING of the Kabul rescues, it is a little quaint that, although the rebel leader, or new king (or whatever Bachai Sachao, alias Habibullah Khan, may at the moment stand for), and his followers refuse to accept the reforms put forward by Ex-King Amanullah as being of Western origin, they are not backward in availing themselves of up-to-date Western facilities in other directions which help them in their own ambitions—to wit, their early seizure of the Kabul aerodrome with all its possibilities. BY way of emphasis that this view in regard to aviation work is no introduction of a few months back, it is to be remembered that the Coach Makers Company was one of WHEN experts disagree they generally disagree whole- heartedly, and the case of the Channel Tunnel " to be or not to be," is no exception. Apparently, the conquest of the air is likely to be used to put forward an even greater argument against than any hitherto adumbrated. Here we now have the views of Lord Haig, Lord Wolseley, Gen. Brackenbury and Sir Coleridge Grove, as set out by their personal friend, Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson, in which he states emphatically that shortly after peace was declared, when Lord Haig and he were lunching together at their club, in reply to a direct question, condemned the Channel Tunnel scheme lock, stock and barrel, and added that air- bombing had increased the danger, as if the Germans had reached the Channel ports they could have bombed a zone round the English entrance and poured troops into England, which was denuded of troops. The latter three experts, Sir Guy reminds one, were those who knocked the last scheme on the head. JUST in case my reference last week to Capt. Campbell's " Napier-Arrol-Aster " car may mislead the uninitiated, it is well to amend this by pointing out that the engine is the Napier Schneider Trophy engine, and that the " Arrol-Aster " responsibility is confined to the body and chassis side of the effort. " AEOLUS 67
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